In 1996, Professor O'Dell began documenting the lives of women from Colorado who were living with cancer. Two years of interviewing and photographing the women evolved into "common threads," a series of photographic quilts (one can be seen at right). "In the family, the quilt has been an object of nostalgia and comfort," a synoposis of the exhibition states. "It was a way for the women in the family to make their own mark when it was not always appropriate for a woman to be heard. It is an object with which Cynthia's mother told her stories and defined her family history. The quilt can also be understood as an object of comfort, but by placing such an uncomfortable subject on this 'soft' surface suggests the difficulties of dealing with a disease such as breast cancer."